Most conflicts simply defer the political solutions needed to underpin peace. The cost of delay can be counted in millions of civilian lives.
THE greater tragedy of the rising civilian death toll in the Middle East is that it is not the exception to the global rule. The conflict is not even the most deadly, although its wider consequences may be the most dangerous. The world's inability to agree on the need for a ceasefire, let alone on a credible plan, points to the reason Israel launched its offensive in southern Lebanon in the first place. A UN force has been there since 1978. It has proved irrelevant to the 2004 UN resolution 1559, which requires Hezbollah, a listed terrorist group, to be disarmed and for the Lebanese army to assume control of the south of the country. Hezbollah, aided by Syria and Iran, has acquired large numbers of rockets that can hit targets deep inside Israel. Hezbollah did fire the first shot and has launched about 100 rockets a day, so Israel has a right to defend itself. Even so, its tactics and judgements about what it hopes to achieve with aerial bombing that has claimed hundreds of Lebanese lives, most of them civilians, must be questioned. The killing of at least 54 civilians, including 37 children, in the village of Qana has caused international outrage and tested the understanding of the US — but still it blocks a Security Council call for a ceasefire.
In almost every conflict, one or another permanent Security Council member abuses its power of veto to serve its own agenda, leaving the UN marginalised until the killing has subsided. In Rwanda, the toll was a million lives. In Congo, a UN force of 17,600 is supervising the first multi-party elections in 40 years, but only after a war that killed millions, most of them civilians. In Sudan's Darfur province, the rising toll of civilian lives has exceeded 400,000 and millions more are caught in a humanitarian disaster. These human tragedies, as well as those in Lebanon, Israel and Gaza, flow from the failure of world powers to reform the UN and make it work, instead of undermining its authority with unilateral actions. Repeated refusals to give the UN the powers and resources it needs to carry out its charter make a mockery of international commitments to peace and the rule of law. In its place, the law of the jungle prevails, which leaves every nation more vulnerable.
While the outpourings of anti-Semitism will reinforce Israel's belief that it is fighting for its existence, the hatred being sown across the Middle East will extend by several generations the threat to the Jewish state and Western nations that are seen as indifferent to civilian deaths (a civilian toll wasn't even recorded in Iraq). It is important to note that Israel, unlike Hezbollah, does not deliberately target civilians and has expressed regret at their deaths, which it blames on Hezbollah's use of civilians as a human shield. Israel has eased its bombardment to allow civilians to flee the conflict. But having opted for an aerial assault rather than more precise ground attacks, Israel still bears responsibility for civilian deaths under international law. Regard for law and human life should be defining points of difference between the actions of states and terrorists.
It is possible, indeed consistent, to be concerned for Israel, for the lives of all civilians and for international law and order all at once. Israel has agreed to a peacekeeping force in Lebanon, although regrettably not to an immediate ceasefire. The international community must seize this opportunity, however slight, by swiftly assembling a force that is able to end Hezbollah's threat in Lebanon. The war on terrorism cannot be won by unilateral military action — the evidence from Iraq and Lebanon, past and present, is of extremism feeding off human suffering.
The Orwellian satire of "peace through war" in 1984 is uncomfortably close to reality in 2006. Today's wars will be ended, rather than paused, only when world powers stop paying lip service to peace and consistently support multilateral diplomacy and observance of international law as the basis for security. World leaders' lamenting of human tragedy and calls for peace are empty unless they commit their energy and resources, including peacekeeping forces, to ending conflicts as they begin. It should never be forgotten that war represents political failure. Civilians invariably pay the highest price for that failure.